Werewolf

Deeply flawed, but fundamentally decent, I approach life with an irreverent attitude toward certain modern social conventions, while harboring a profound nostalgia for bygone traditions of honor and decency. We each have our own code, and I succeed and fail by mine.

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

When Human Rights activists enable Human Rights violators.

Amnesty International is taking some much deserved heat in the British press. Richard Kerbaj of the Times of London, penned this rather damning piece raising some important questions about the double standards and lack of ethical consistency within the organization. It's both welcome and overdue.

Back in his more activist days, the werewolf would frequently spar with self-identified "human rights activists" and liberal champions on his college campus. The theme he noticed from his youthful encounters and from this article(and many others) is the near universal assumption of innocence of those detained by the United States in places like Gitmo, and the universal application of malicious motives to entities like the United States. It's akin to blaming the wealthy white woman who was rapped raped by a poor black urban hoodlum because she doesn't conform to a nation of victim-hood by virtue of being white and wealthy and that being poor and black excused the behavior of the perpetrator. There is a severe lack of perspective and scale. Being a level-headed and staunch believer in human dignity and freedom, their rather overt biases has always baffled the werewolf because, while imperfect, the west, even at its worst, is light-years ahead of Afghanistan and the Taliban on anything relating to human dignity. The werewolf is glad to see that stories like this are beginning to take a toll on organizations like Amnesty International. He would love to see a non-partisan global Human Rights organization that focuses on epicenters of real political blight like Iran, Zimbabwe, China, Burma, and Equatorial Guinea. Dare to dream.